"From, In, To Jingdezhen; Eight Experiences" Clayarch Gimhae Museum

From, In, To Jingdezhen; Eight Experiences a group exhibition from artists working in Jingdezhen, China. More about the exhibition written by the curator, Jaewon Lee below:

This exhibition gathers eight visions of nine artists (seven solo artists and two collaborators) who, either through accident or by destiny, encountered Jingdezhen, the traditional porcelain capital of China, then made the city to be center of their creative playground and workshop. Except Wang Jian, a Jingdezhen native, the ceramicists in this exhibition first visited Jingdezhen to investigate, then revisited to work time after time (Thomas Schmidt + Jeffrey Miller of Recycled China, from the US), some stayed long-term several times (Felicity Aylieff from the UK), or even moved there to make that unfamiliar territory their home (Derek Au from the US; Lee Seunghee from Korea; Takeshi Yasuda from the UK; Jin Zhenhua and Zhang Ming, from other parts of China).

In the industrial environment of Jingdezhen, where an outdated world still carries the 19th century ways of making ceramics, these artists have explored a sense of expedition and discovery with their own luggage of diverse backgrounds, artistic goals, habits, cultures, languages, philosophies, and traditions. The interconnection of mind, materials, and transformation at the heart of ceramic process can engage viewers with unique ceramic practices, issues of diversity, notions of community and dynamic change. Thus, something of hybrid consequence was yielded.

The works in this exhibition approach the notion of vessels variously. Yet each is remarkable for dealing with the notion of vessel directly, or questioning how certain considerations come to attain that subject matter. Wang Jian focuses on functional tea ware with extreme precision and yet with utter elegance while striving to create the total living space, the design for his interior dwelling, his study, exterior environment and garden to reveal his entire identity as untimely Oriental suggestive of the past couple centuries’ vocabulary. Felicity Aylieff‘s ambitious scale of large bottles (大瓶, daping) is a remarkable example of what can be done in Jingdezhen. Her use of enamel painting method (粉彩, Fencai)) is uniquely Jingdezhenian while she develops her own contemporary motif. Her daping is reminiscent of those 17th century Jingdezhen Export Ware to Europe, which demonstrated highly developed color palette and painted illustrations. Derek Auand Takeshi Yasuda sustain their commitment to function and wheel-throwing tradition, while pushing to venture into an expansion of utility. Both manifest the beauty and sensuous materiality of Jingdezhen porcelain and local Hutian, local glazes dates back to Song Dynasty, that are fired at extremely high temperature. Jin Zhenhua uses vessel as metaphor for sculptural thoughts and contemplative oeuvre. Her use of altered thrown forms illustrate the abstracted plant life. Lee Seunghee’s large scale tile work, which also displays what Jingdezhen artisans can produce, depicts the the historical pottery on his tile surface, rejecting and reassessing the subject/object paradigm entirely. His sculpture emulates bamboo directly from his indelible impression from the typical Chinese bamboo forests. Moreover, Thomas Schmidt + Jeffrey Millerof Recycled in China even bulldozed Jingdezhen factories’discarded commercial plates and bowls into small shards to bring back to longstanding conventions of tile making, but with molten aluminum that is also recycled. Zhang Ming’s sculpture has myriads of slip-cast multiples that make a typical genre of mountain and water(山水) landscape. Groupings of multiple parts contain ethereal matter conceptually rather than physically.

For these eight paradigms related to Jingdezhen, artists operate on an interchangeable mereology of human minds that can reach out far and wide. Artists in this exhibition are the ones I met in Jingdezhen or Beijing, in the period of 2009-2016 when I travelledto Beijing for my research and to Jingdezhen for studio practice of my own porcelain work. We started as outsiders, visitors, strangers to a foreign spot in the enormous world. Tomost of it, we remain unexposed and unknown. It is rare, but we can come across total strangers, who instantly become like an immediate part of our inner lives. These strangers become friends throughout the course of our journey in life; sometimes guiding from afar and floating in and out just as we need them.I am intrigued in what is manifested in their creative life of transforming Jingdezhen’s porcelain to unique, innovative, and extraordinary outcome of their own. These eight experiences are a synthesis of their artistic visions of simplicity, cultural manifestation, hybridization, and alchemic ambitions.

Samples

These tiles are comprised of two commercially produced ceramic decal images which have been ripped up and then blended together through a collage technique. By breaking down and sampling the many images applied to ceramic surfaces, the work serves as a from of abstract documentation of and meditation on the ceramic industry of Jingdezhen, China. This work was exhibited at the Jingdezhen China Ceramic Museum in 2017.

Test tiles of commercially produced ceramic decal collaged on porcelain tile on porcelain tile 15x40cm each

Paper Shredder

Using a paper shredder these tiles breakdown and carefully reorganize ceramic decals from Jingdezhen, China.

This work is part of an on going collaboration with artist Thomas Schmidt.

JINGDEZHEN TENSILE COMPOSITIONS

Thousands of extruded ceramic rods have been individually placed into a ceramic core. These compositions explore the fragility of ceramics along with the meditative process of repetition. This work was exhibited at Scandinavian Arts Center in Jingdezhen, China

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelain 170x160x160cm

Porcelian 85x320x160cm

Porcelain 85x320x160cm

Porcelain 85x320x160cm

Gyeonggi International Ceramics Biennale

This work was selected for the 2015 bronze prize of the Gyeonggi International Ceramic Biennale. For more information about the work please read the scanned pages from the biennale catalog and visit the recycledchina website here.

recycled porcelain and aluminum 100x200cm

recycled porcelain and aluminum 100x200cm

Recycled Tile

Recycled China is a design team formed by Thomas Schmidt and Jeffrey Stephen Miller. As Americans having lived in Beijing, RC is inspired by the rich history of Chinese ceramics and the massive scale of ceramic industry within China today. Their work attempts to give new life to the huge quantity of discarded ceramics and other industrial waste from factories around China by transforming them into original artworks, functional design objects, and architectural tile. Their research lead to a new process of melting and casting recycled aluminum into molds containing crushed ceramic, brick, and glass as an aggregate material. Their discovery revealed that when these materials meet, the molten aluminum flows and curls around the shards and cools immediately, capturing this rapid collision. The resulting textures and compositions are dynamic and unpredictable, and are intended to reflect the dynamic and complex relationship between tradition and industry within China today.

Recycled Pots

North Carolina Figurine Project

In progress project with artist Thomas Schmidt and a local terrazzo factory. Figurines collected from thrift stores in the North Carolina are cast in clear resin and then sliced to make panels that expose the inner shapes of these household objects.

Windows

Damaged decals that have been discarded from factories in Jingdezhen, China were sourced to make this work. Using a laser cutter, circles were made to frame the unique moments that happen during the"mistakes" within an industrial process. This project is an on going work in which new tiles are added and rearranged as discarded decals are collected.

Beijing Design Week

This modular planter system was installed at Capital M restaurant for Beijing Design Week in 2013. Sponsored by the US Embassy and curated by Chart Contemporary, this work was showcased along with three other Recycled China pop up locations at Beijing Design Week.

For more information please visit www.recycledchina.com

Photo courtesy of Chart Contemporary

Photo courtesy of Chart Contemporary

Photo courtesy of Chart Contemporary

Photo courtesy of Chart Contemporary

Anaglyph

An anaglyph 3D ceramic decal made for use with 3D glasses. This work is still in development.

"Shatter, Crush, Sift" Matthias Kueper, Beijing

"Embedded Creation" Ullens Center for Contemporary Art (UCCA)

Photo by Ingo courtesy of Zcontemporary

Photo by Ingo courtesy of Zcontemporary

Video courtesy of Sandy Ding

Video courtesy of Sandy Ding

Video courtesy of Sandy Ding

Video courtesy of Sandy Ding

Video courtesy of Sandy Ding

Video courtesy of Sandy Ding

Terra Cotta Tensile Compositions

Terracotta 140x130x100

Terracotta 140x130x100cm

Terracotta 140x130x100cm

"Random/Order" Turner Gallery

A collaborative exhibition with artist Mat Karas at the Robert C. Turner Gallery. The two artists brought from their individual studios whatever they had been working on at the time. They then spent 24 hours inside the space making installations that combined both artists work.